Researchers acknowledge this may have something to do with sleep deprivation – a common side effect of parenting. But even so, the research is encouraging. Lee Gettler, a Northwestern researcher and the lead author of the study, explains:

“It’s not just mothers that have an innate, kind of biological orientation towards childcare, men have that ability, too. And so I think that this can really broaden our idea of men as fathers and what the traditional role fathers should be perhaps, or what it means to ‘be a man.'” he said.